A Game of Monopoly
by queen-sheep
Summary: In which Hermione introduces them to the grand game of Monopoly. Let's see how things play out, shall we?


_Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition: Round 13 for the chaser 3. This was written as a sequel to another fic called 'truth or dare' written by baozito3. The story is called Remain in Motion and it's the sixth chapter. You don't really need to read it to understand this story, but I'd recommend it! It's good for a laugh!_

* * *

Seamus and Dean were just walking through the door of the Gryffindor common room when a loud clattering sound came from the center of the room. They paused in their conversation, looking quizzically in the direction of the noise. There, settled on the rug, was Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville. They were in a circle, surrounding some sort of object on the floor.

"No!" came the despairing cry of Harry.

"Yes!" Ron cheered, cheerfully grabbing something colourful from the palm of Harry's hand.

The two of them slipped past the group, and headed over to the fireplace.

"What's going on?" Seamus asked Lavender, who was lounging on the armchairs with Parvati.

She glanced in the direction he was looking, then rolled her eyes. "They're playing another silly muggle game," she said.

Dean leaned forward, interested. "_Another_ one? Didn't they just play truth or dare the other day?"

Parvati smirked and nodded. They all knew what happened with the event last time. It involved yodelling and flirting and Snape being particularly nasty to Harry for the next day.

"But this one's a little more boring to watch. I suppose it's fun to the players though," she said.

They turned to watch as Harry threw down his cards, yelling, "I give up!"

He then stormed away to his dorm, sulking. Ron and Hermione gave each other wide grins, counting their money and basking in their glory. Neville retreated to what had been dubbed 'Neville's Corner' and curled up in a ball, trembling nervously.

"Oh wow," Seamus murmured. "Do I even want to know what happened?"

"All you need to know is that the loser has to do a dare," Lavender said. "And that dare ... well, you'll see tomorrow."

Dean winced at that. "Poor Harry," he said.

They shared a moment of silence for him.

-X-

(An hour earlier)

-X-

Hermione let out a heave of breath, plopping down onto the couch next to Ron. He briefly glanced up at her and muttered a greeting, before returning to his game of chess with Harry. For a moment, she rested her head against her hands, watching them play.

It was all incredibly boring.

"There's nothing to do," she said.

"Read a book?" Harry said.

She wrinkled her nose. "I don't feel like it."

"Go for a walk then."

"In this weather? No way."

Harry raised an eyebrow. Ron simply let out an exasperated sigh.

"Go do homework then," he said.

"We don't _have _any, remember?" she snapped back.

"Then… I don't know, do something," he said, and promptly returned to his game. Harry, after a moment of hesitation, went back to it as well, giving her an apologetic look.

She huffed. Do something? Oh, she would do something alright.

Standing abruptly from the chair, she grabbed the chessboard and all its pieces, dumping it back into the container. Ignoring the chess pieces indignant shouts, and Harry and Ron's gaping faces, she shut the container with a firm hand.

"I— hey, what do you think you're doing?" Ron exclaimed, lunging for the container.

She hid it behind her back. "I'm doing something, just like you said. In fact, I'm going to drop this off in the girl's dorm. Don't. Move."

They stared after her retreating back in shock. Hermione simply smiled, and headed upstairs. She carelessly threw the container onto her bed, then went to her trunk to ruffle through its contents. She had a game there that would be so much more fun to play.

Spotting it under a pile of folded clothes, she grabbed the rectangular box and went back to the common room. The boy's, true to her word, didn't move. They gave her very disgruntled glances as she approached, and she grinned back.

Hermione sat down on the couch again, holding the box on her lap.

"What's this?" Ron asked, squinting at it in confusion. "…Monopoly?"

"It's a muggle game," Hermione explained. She turned to Harry. "Don't you know it?"

He gave her a somewhat confused smile. "Yeah, I've heard of it, but I never got to play it…"

"That's perfect then, isn't it?" Hermione said. "We can play it now!"

"Yeah, sure," Harry said. "Not like we have anything else to do now."

"Because you ruined our game," Ron said. Hermione ignored him.

"Let's sit over there," Hermione said, gesturing over to an area where there was clear space.

They headed over to that direction, and settled themselves in for the game. Opening the lid of the box, they starting taking things out and placing everything where it was supposed to go.

"How do you even play this game?" Ron asked, looking over everything with a raised eyebrow.

It was around then that Neville peered over their shoulders.

"What are you guys doing?" he asked curiously. He said this, very carefully not looking Hermione in the eyes.

"We're playing a muggle game," Hermione said. "It's called Monopoly."

Neville stiffened very noticeably at the words 'muggle game'. He took a small step back.

"I… see," he said slowly. "Have fun playing you guys."

Ron glanced up at him. "C'mon mate, join us. There's enough room for four here."

"I-I really don't think—"

"Don't worry about it Neville," Harry said reassuringly. "This is nothing like the last game we played."

Hearing those words, he calmed down slightly. "Alright," he agreed. "But I don't know how to play this?"

He sat down at the only remaining space, and Hermione, handing out the money, started talking.

"Simply put, the point of this game is to get as much money off people as you can. If you look on the board, there are various coloured spaces right? These spaces are different places you can own, and to buy it, you have to land on it. You use these slips of paper as money, and if you pay for a space, then you get a house. But if you land on a space someone else already owns, then you have to pay them money instead. As soon as you go bankrupt, you lose the game.

Over here in the middle, there are two piles of cards right? These are community chest and chance, and if you land on the squares, then you draw a card out of whatever deck you landed on, and you have to do what the slip of paper said. And here, right in the corner, is the jail. If you land on the square, you have to remain there for three turns, unless you roll the two dice and get the same number on both of them.

You can also add more houses to a space if you want, and you have to pay the amount these cards say. But you have to land on it again to do that. In addition, you see these tax income squares? All the money from that will go to the center, and whoever lands on free parking gets all the money.

And the last thing is that when you pass 'Go', you get two hundred dollars."

Hermione finished her explanation. "Got it?" she asked.

"Yeah, should be fine," Ron said. He glanced down at his money, shuffled them all into his grip, and subtly slipped one of his hundred dollar bills into his pocket. No one noticed.

Neville nodded. "Let's get started then?"

They each took a turn at rolling the dice, to see who would go first. It was: Neville, Hermione, Harry, then finally, Ron.

Neville was wide eyed, shocked at his good fortune. He eagerly reached for the dice again, and rolled it, getting a seven, and landing on 'Chance'. But before he could move it to that location, Hermione stopped him.

"Wait," she said. "We could maybe… make this a bit more fun."

Harry frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, we could make the loser do a dare?" she said, grinning. It was clear that she had no intentions of losing.

"… Sure," Ron said. "It's an incentive not to lose, at the very least."

Harry sighed. "Alright then," he said. "Let's do it."

Neville's face paled. What have I gotten myself into, he wondered to himself. He should've known better.

"Okay, that dare can be ending all your sentences in a random word. For the whole day," Hermione said.

"No, how about having to look someone dead in the eye and swing your hips in a full circle. Then you leave and do it again to someone else, for an hour," Ron said excitedly.

"The first one sounds worse than the second," Harry said. "We can make the loser do the first one, and the second loser do the second one."

"Deal," Ron and Hermione said, and Neville paled even more.

He reached over to his piece, an iron, and hurriedly moved it the seven places before they could get anymore crazy ideas. Picking up the card for Chance, he read it aloud.

"Advance to Go. Collect $200."

He stared, astonished, at the card. It was only his first move, and he already had great luck! The others watched as he returned his piece to 'Go', and Hermione, the banker, gave him his money.

Next was Hermione. She rolled a nine, landing all the way in Connecticut Avenue. She moved her piece, the shoes, to that square and instantly bought it.

Harry landed a four. That got him to Income Tax, and with a horrified expression, he placed $200 in the center of the board. He stared at the top hat mournfully.

"Why?" he asked. "Why me?"

"Sucks to be you," Ron said, reaching for the dice.

He got a five, moving his dog to the square and buying up the Reading Railroad in an instant.

The four of them continued in the same fashion, sometimes drawing an audience, sometimes just them. It didn't take long for the entire board to be covered in houses and hotels and money.

The whole time, Ron kept discretely slipping money into his pocket. He, unbelievably enough, had managed to grab hold of all the railroads and Park Place, as well as several other key locations on the board. He was doing well enough; not terribly, but not really great either.

Hermione was simply ruling the game. She had Board Walk and Kentucky Place, the two locations Harry kept landing on for some reason. He lost hundreds to her every time he passed around the board. She had even managed to get into Free Parking when it had been loaded with money, making her rich. It was completely unfair that she managed to grab hold of most of the reds and the yellows.

Meanwhile, Harry and Neville were completely and utterly miserable. Harry owned a measly four squares, all of them rather low key and nobody landed on them to boot. His major bane was Hermione's squares, and he was running very low on money.

Neville had actually been doing really well in the first half of the game. He had been getting good squares, and people had been landing on his locations sometimes. But then, he landed on Chance and had gotten the repairs card, where he had to pay a certain amount for every house he had. Neville, already running low on money from his splurge in buying houses, had reluctantly paid the fees, which added to a hefty amount. Then, a couple turns later, he had landed on Community Chest, which had given his the exact same card. The result was that he was doing just a bit better than Harry was.

And then finally, the game ended. Harry was broke. Harry had lost.

Smugly, Hermione started counting her money. Ron casually counted his too, ignoring Neville and Harry's shocked looks as he pulled the hidden money out of his pocket. Neville weakly counted his own, knowing it wouldn't be as much as the other two.

Hermione was the winner. Ron was a close second, and then it was Neville, and Harry, who had lost.

Harry threw down his cards. "I give up!" he yelled, storming out of the common room.

"Don't forget about the dare!" Ron shouted at his back.

Hermione smiled at Neville. "You too Neville. We'll tell you when to begin."

He whimpered at them.

-X-

"Mister Potter, what exactly are you doing?" McGonagall asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about Professor, pickle," Harry said.

"Stop right this instance!"

"Stop what, telly?"

McGonagall gave him an extremely aggravated look. "Mister Potter, this is your last warning."

"Like I said, I don't know what you're talking about, gobble."

-X-

Neville was almost done. He had been swinging his hips for almost an hour already. There was just a bit more to go….

Behind him, Harry, Ron, and Hermione gave him encouraging shouts.

It was then they came upon Draco and his friends. Neville blanched, fervently hoping his hour was over.

"Five minutes to go!" Hermione said.

Trembling slightly, he looked Draco straight in the eye. The Slytherin raised an eyebrow at him, taunt resting on his mouth already.

Then, Neville moved his hips in a full circle. Turning bright red, he ran away the instant the deed was done.

Both of Draco's eyebrows had risen up fully now, and the three of them ignored him and went after Neville. They found him back in his corner, and decided to leave him there for now.

"Any other muggle games you know?" Ron asked Hermione.

She smiled. "Of course."


End file.
